Video: Tricky Feat. Nneka – "Nothing Matters"

The video for Tricky’s “Nothing Matters” features high contrast images of post-war British architecture and street scenes, bringing to mind both the harsh realities of street life and the humanity in the midst. The track features Nigerian singer-songwriter Nneka on vocal duties, and is one of the many highlights of Tricky’s new False Idols album, out this week.

Tricky is back. Back with a new studio album, False Idols, and his own label (also bearing the False Idols name), but also back in a personal sense. “I was lost for ages,” he says. “I was trying to prove something to people, trying to do something to please other people and also myself at the same time, which is never going to work. To be honest with you, I’ve been floating around since Chris Blackwell and Island. My last two albums, I thought they were good, but I realize now they weren’t. This album is about me finding myself again.”

The spirit of Tricky’s ‘90s output looms large over False Idols. There are times when his entire career has seemed like a stubborn refusal to be defined by its success or sound. He has finally come to terms with it, even learned to embrace it. The lightbulb moment came when he was sending demos to a friend. “All the songs which were easy for me to write, which I wrote in two hours, he sent me a message saying, ‘This is why I loved you in the beginning.’ The stuff that I’d thought about more, that stuff he was like, ‘It’s OK, yeah.’ So then I knew. It brought me back to my natural instincts.”

Many of the songs on False Idols feature artists signed to Tricky’s new label, including 24-year Londoner Francesca Belmonte and Fifi Rong. The album also includes collaborations with Nigeria’s new global star Nneka, and the Antlers front man Peter Silberman.

“This new album I’ll stand behind every track,” Tricky says. “I don’t care whether people like it. I’m doing what I want to do, which is what I did with my first record. That’s what made me who I was in the beginning. If people don’t like it, it don’t matter to me because I’m back where I was.”

Watch the Video Here: